Gilles Le Borgne, the new boss of engineering Renault, will travel the week of January 27 to Japan to meet his counterparts from Nissan. This trip comes a few days before the announcement of a return to the sources of the alliance to reassure the state of health of the Franco-Japanese partnership, two sources close to the Renault group told Reuters.
Alliance operational council on January 30
Gilles Le Borgne was appointed on January 6 to the French automaker, in a position identical to that he occupied eight months earlier at PSA. He will notably meet Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi, one of the craftsmen of the famous Nissan Leaf electric and now in charge of the convergence of engineering for the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance. The two men have already exchanged by video, said one of the sources, a sign according to her that the dialogue between French and Japanese engineers, which made the heyday of the alliance, is far from being broken despite the crisis caused by the disgrace of ex-CEO Carlos Ghosn and the deterioration in sales.
“The alliance has taken a hit but the alliance engineering teams are still present,” said another source close to Renault-Nissan. “You can’t stop things like this going deep overnight,” she added.
Of the six new joint departments in 2018, five are still in place: engineering, manufacturing, purchasing, after-sales and business development. The latter function is performed by Hadi Zablit, the new secretary general of the alliance responsible for coordinating major projects to be announced on Thursday January 30 at the next Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi operational council in Japan. Only the common quality management has returned to the fold of each partner today.
“A new start”, according to Jean-Dominique Senard
As Renault president Jean-Dominique Senard has suggested in recent weeks, the alliance council intends to relaunch between the partners the exchanges of executives who formed the cement of the partnership sealed in 1999 and made it possible to overcome cultural differences and competition between French and Japanese R&D centers.
“The alliance is in the process of making a new start. We are finding today the original spirit. Old households sometimes take difficulties and then it starts up again and I believe that 20 years is a form of maturity “, said Jean-Dominique Senard Thursday January 23 on France 2 from the World Economic Forum in Davos. Preferring in passing to refer, among the founders of the alliance, to Louis Schweitzer than to Carlos Ghosn, Jean-Dominique Senard replied as follows to critics of the former strong man of Renault-Nissan who mocked, after his flight from Japan, an alliance of “masquerade”.
Towards a totally common electrical program?
The return to basics will also involve the relaunch of joint industrial projects likely to improve the operational efficiency of the alliance and its partners, both shaken in 2019 by several downward revisions of their sales and margin targets. The ambition is to generate new synergies.
If the question of the future of Renault’s high-end (Espace and Talisman) on the CMF-C / D joint platform remains unanswered, the new alliance electric program, currently being deployed, is this time totally common, unlike duplicates of the first generations of Leaf and Zoé. According to several sources, the electric motor and the reducer, designed at the Renault Technocentre, will see their production inaugurated at Nissan, and the platform will give birth in 2020 to the Nissan Ariya crossover, followed in turn for the next two years of Renault models.
The hybrid, “one of the weak points of the alliance”
On the other hand, the partners have again worked in several directions on their first hybrid program combining petrol and electric engines. “The synergies are working well now in the electrical sector, but it is the hybrid that constitutes one of the weak points of the alliance, because the synergies are not up to par,” observes Romain Gillet, automotive analyst at IHS Markit.
Renault is launching this year its “E-Tech” hybrid, the fruit of the group’s historic expertise in diamonds in gearboxes, while Nissan, for its part, has developed the “e-Power” system for Asia. totally different design. The third partner Mitsubishi, in industry one of the precursors of the electric hybridization of vehicles, offers meanwhile on the Outlander its own traditional architecture.
“It was part of the friction,” added the source close to the alliance. “But now that the three objects are there, we will have to use them as efficiently as possible.” Nissan will embark Renault E-Tech on its small SUV Juke while Renault could use the e-Power of its Japanese partner on its Kadjar, especially in Asia, according to a source close to Renault, a source close to the alliance and an industrial source. Nissan will also offer its e-Power in Europe to replace diesel on the Qashqai.
Asked about the announcements of Thursday, January 30, Renault and Nissan France declined to comment.
With Reuters (Published by Gwénaëlle Barzic)